She Said, He Said

I've been working at the mall for almost a year now, and "people watching" has been one of the things to do to pass time. On very very few occasions, my co-workers and I have difficulty identifying the gender of our patrons from behind, since some girls have masculine features and like to wear their hair short, and some guys like to wear their hair long. A couple of days ago, there was a person who had long curly dark hair, I believe of a islander decent, somewhat shorter than me (I am 5' 8"). Isaiah, my co-worker, challenged me to identify their gender. Unbeknownst to him, I had already identified this person before as a male, but from behind...it was really difficult NOT to say that he was a woman.

This brought back to my remembrance one incident a few years back in Sacramento California, playing volleyball with other young adults from my church, which happened every Thursday evening. There was a Polynesian girl that I had never met before, somewhat heavyset and had long hair, playing on the opposing team. After one of the plays, there was a discrepancy as to which team was awarded the point. As I voiced my opinion, I kept saying "She touched it last. She touched it last", pointing to this Polynesian girl. That was when everyone corrected me and said "You mean, HE touched it last."

In disbelief, I looked at one of my friends on my team, somewhat at a loss of words, somewhat puzzled, somewhat embarrassed. She looked back at me with the "Oh gosh, you just messed up bad!" look. That lasted a few more seconds, but we went just went back to playing the game like nothing happened.

You know it would have been MUCH worse if the genders were swapped...